


Sigh no more

by MelodyGarnet



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, F/M, based on tate/tennant production, don't worry it gets better later on, shakespeare tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-06-25 11:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyGarnet/pseuds/MelodyGarnet
Summary: The messenger, however, stood still. The conversation, merrily rolling along on a joyful rhythm until now, stalled. Beatrice, having slouched against the courtyard’s pillar, stood to attention.This was not how the script goes.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a hot summer day when the news came. Hero, her cousin, had been dancing in the courtyard with her headphones on and Beatrice had been reading. Trying to read, really, for every other second she would sigh at her cousin’s hopping about or scoff at Ten Summer Tips To Get A Good Husband. Gratefully she saw her uncle appear with a letter, giving her reason to abandon her dreadful reading.

The messenger appeared in tow, not a bad-looking one. He even played along with her uncle, discussing the letter’s news out loud so the women would also enjoy the news. “But few of any sort were lost, my lord, though one of name.” Beatrice wondered who was lost, as men of name were almost always known to them.

The thought was soon forgotten as Claudio’s name fell and the men spoke of his feats of battle. Beatrice was happy for her cousin. Hero had chattered on and on about his lovely face when the army’s nobles had stayed with Leonato for a night, though Beatrice had noted him not. She had looked upon him only. He had seemed to her too doe-like and round-faced, and all too happy to follow the words of whoever last spoke to the lad. It was a surprise to her he had become a good fighter.

So unlike Benedick, she pondered. There was a soldier with a strong jaw and a strong mind- though he used his mind only for jesting. Speaking of.

“I pray you, is Signor Mountanto returned from the war”, she asked, “or _no_.” She was only joking, of course. As if it were an option. Benedick was a silly man and a braggart, but he was good friends with the prince for a reason. He had a mind like a steel trap when it came to battle, she’d heard, but quick to make people forget about it once he opened his mouth off the battlefield. And also a good shot, actually. He’d taken her hunting once, when they were too young to think of marriage but old enough to flirt. He’d killed many birds, and she, giggling, had promised that she would always eat his killings.

The promise had taken a foul taste when Benedick had left for war. Beatrice coped with it by joking about it. She coped with everything by joking about it.

“I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort”, the messenger said in confusion. Not a fencing man, then. Benedick would have gotten the joke.

Her uncle asked his niece to speak plainly before the poor messenger. Leonato knew Beatrice well, and had interrupted a cutting explanation, no doubt. “What is he that you ask for, niece?” He could take a guess.

Hero could, too: “My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua”.

Leonato smiled. Father and daughter had rolled their eyes often at Beatrice, and how she would somehow always manage to turn conversation to Benedick, and how she would very much not marry him for all the world.

The messenger, however, stood still. The conversation, merrily rolling along on a joyful rhythm until now, stalled. Beatrice, having slouched against the courtyard’s pillar, stood to attention.

This was not how the script goes.

“I’m sorry, my Lady” the messenger said. He has not even the grace to look Beatrice in the eye. “He has been reported missing in action. Count Claudio saw him fall overboard during the battle.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My lord, I beg your grace. Though we will celebrate your victory tonight, we ask that on the morrow our household may mourn. Benedick had been fostered at Messina when he was in his teens. All the household had known him of old and loved him well, though he was mischievous as the day was long.”
> 
> “Aye, I well believe it”, the Prince laughed in sorrow, and Claudio at his side looked away to hide his tears. Hero stepped away from her father’s arm and laid a hand on the Count’s shoulder in comfort. Claudio cheered up immediately.

There was no time, thought Leonato. Why did they not leave more time? Why had the messenger been so slow? He nor his daughter could go to Beatrice before the troops arrived victoriously, the Prince in the front.

“Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble”, the Prince greeted. “The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.” Rumour had it he was a merry man, but not today it seemed.

“Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain” The lord of the house greeted him back, though much less heartily than he would have had otherwise. He was aware of the pressure to be polite even in times of unexpected grief.

In a more private tone, he spoke most sincerely: “But when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.” Hero came to Leonato and leaned against his side. Her eyes were downcast, and he could not help but hold her closer. He introduced her out of rote.

The Prince greeted Hero and complimented her politely, then frowned. “You have heard of our loss? We thought to reveal it only to his nearest, and in person, before it became idle gossip among civilians.”

“Yea, my lord, but it was no gossip” his daughter said, “Your messenger did reveal it to us in private company.”

The young Count Claudio, who had crept closer with his eye on the lord’s daughter – Leonato may be old, but he was not blind – appeared enraged immediately. The lord raised his hand before the hot-tempered boy could open his mouth. “Peace! The messenger came only to bring us the good tidings of your lordship’s victory and the count’s deeds. He was a simple boy, and we took him by surprise. He knew not that Signor Benedick had such ties in Messina as would ask of his fate in battle. We had not but heard of it when you arrived.”

The Prince nodded then and expressed his sorrow for their loss. Leonato thanked him. He looked around at the soldiers, who had been dismissed, and were now making use of his hospitality. He was unwilling to break up the victorious mood, remembering his own army days and wishing these lads well for their feat.

“My lord, I beg your grace. Though we will celebrate your victory tonight, we ask that on the morrow our household may mourn. Benedick had been fostered at Messina when he was in his teens. All the household had known him of old and loved him well, though he was mischievous as the day was long.”

“Aye, I well believe it”, the Prince laughed in sorrow, and Claudio at his side looked away to hide his tears. Hero stepped away from her father’s arm and laid a hand on the Count’s shoulder in comfort. Claudio cheered up immediately.

“Then, my Lord, I will go to prepare the revelling to-night and shall share the sad news with all my household to-morrow. There is one other of my kin who has already heard the messenger, but she has disappeared for a lonelier stage with the arrival of your men”, Leonato said, turning to leave.

Claudio, however, stopped him with a surprised guffaw. Leonato was reconsidering how well this Count could fit his steadfast Hero, well-titled though he was. A turncoat of emotions, this man. “She?”, Claudio asked, “Surely this lady will gossip and share her sorrow as is her sex’ wont?”

“Faith, she will keep the secret,” Hero scolded and removed her hand. Bright girl, Leonato thought proudly. “She will laugh the sorrow away to-night as she has laughed away sorrows all her life. It is her way to be merry for others when she cannot be so herself”.

“Ah”, Claudio said, trying to cheer up the lord’s beautiful daughter and move back into her grace, “Then is the lady like our Benedick, and she will be glad to be rid of the competition.” Softly, the Prince tutted his right-hand man’s attempts at being clever and hit him on the shoulder.

Leonato shook his head. “Mock not. This lady’s loss is no laughing matter. My niece has been struck many blows by Lady Fortune in her young life yet has been stubbornly merry just as long. Her hard heart has been a comfort to us many times. It does not do to mock her, now that it is our turn to steady her heart. I worry it may be this last shock will undo her.”


	3. Chapter 3

His good friend Conrade scolded him, for he had failed to please the crowd in Leonato’s courtyard. John cared not. He had been revealed the King of Aragon’s bastard son some years back and had ever since been kept close within the Prince’s control. It was a place John hated to be.

“I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any.”

He had liked his life much better when he had been a good woman’s bastard son begot by some unknown noble. His mother – a barely noble lady-in-waiting to a high-status lady of the court – had been shamed often for it, but she was too proud and strong to be broken. She was intelligent and direct and, when made to fend for herself, had managed her own fortune because she had no male relative living. She had raised him well and seen to it that he was well-learnt. She had passed her pride and straightforwardness onto him, and so it rankled him to be so maligned in his half-brother’s court. He had never hated her, until he had been revealed to be royal. It had ruined his life.

“In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.”

How typical of his father. The King had wanted to put his own son in his place, to make clear to him that even the Prince’s own position was entirely dependent on his father’s whims. He had revealed that John was his older bastard son, and so Don Pedro could, if the King so declared, lose his favour to him. John had promptly been summoned to court to be held on a leash.

“I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage.”

Now John had naught left to do with his life but to resent Don Pedro, the cheerful prison guard, and his companions, Sir Bareface and Sir Jester. He resented all women for thinking themselves better than his mother. He envied all men for their freedom. He was a dog on a leash, yes, but he would bite them all one day. Conrade and Borachio often pushed him to perform small acts of villain-y and served him for exorbitant fees. It was no matter. It was easier to be cruel than to acknowledge how trapped he felt; and the money was not earned by himself, anyway.

“If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

Conrade started to speak, but a woman’s voice interrupted: “Well said, my lord”.

The two stiffened and turned to see a beautiful, red-headed lady standing behind them.

“I prithee, forgive me for my interruption. I did not mean to overhear. I merely wanted to seek a quiet moment away from the revels to-night. I have not the stomach to act merry when I am not so.” She gestured with her right-hand, which was holding a large green bottle and a wine glass. The two men had, indeed, been blocking the doorway to the balcony. She had been clearing her throat for quite a while.

Hurriedly, they sprung apart. The lady saluted them and walked in between to stand on the balcony. She put her load on the wide railing. Unceremoniously, she pulled the cork out of the bottle and served herself generously. Then, she leaned on the railing and looked out over the hills and beaches of Messina.

Wordlessly, Conrade indicated that they could continue speaking elsewhere. Don John, however, shook his head and bid his man to go. He saw Borachio coming up as well but gestured they both turned away. Then, he joined the lady. He was intrigued by her; she was probably a noble lady but her demeanour was refreshingly straightforward. Almost familiar.

The view over the houses and port of the city was indeed quite beautiful in the moonlight. He looked out silently for some time. When the lady beside him went to fill her glass a second time, he looked over to start talking, but was surprised to see she had been silently crying.

“My lady, why are you crying?” His voice was harsh in the quiet of the night. It was harsher than he had meant to be; he had been cruel by force of habit.

The lady smirked. “I am crying because I must be sad when I have just cause.”

Don John made a conceding gesture with his head. He had, indeed, said that before Conrade had started scolding him. He had not realized she had been standing there so long.

“I suppose I ought to ask what your cause is, then. All others in this house seem to be full of joy and victory. My brother certainly is, and so is his squire, and so is the household. But not you.”

There is a quiet, as the lady sips her drink. Then, she seems to come to a conclusion: “The truth is, my lord, I am grieving, though I am not yet permitted to grieve. All the household is determined to forget the cost of the battle for the night, as though we have not paid dearly to win.”

John is not a genius by most measures, but he is not an idiot either. This lady speaks like a noble, and there was only one loss a noble lady would be permitted to grieve. But it stung him, for the man did not deserve such grief in his eye.

“You grieve for Signor Benedick? The Prince’s jester?” He scoffs.

The lady – to his surprise – huffs out a laugh, too. “Yea, though I would not have believed it of myself ere this day. We had betwixt us a merry war of wit. Many mistook we despised each other. But it was not so. The man and I were simply of the same humour; on love and marriage, on wit and merriment; we were well-matched. As long as he was alive, I was not lonely.”

Don John heard her sigh and recognized the tone of it. It was not the sigh of love lost, though it had shades of it – he was a soldier in his brother’s army, he knew what sighs the new widows made, and the besotted camp followers when their favoured man did not return. This was the sound of his own sighs, of a man who has lost a limb: the robbery of a future. She may not have loved him, but she would have married him. Who was this lady?

‘Without him, I am consigned to such a fate as yours, brother to the Prince.”

“How so?” John had snapped but could not help it. Bastard he may be, he was nothing like the weaker sex.

“Revolve you, noble sir, on this thread. Were you not born disadvantaged, thought lesser for being what you are? Have you not certain strains of nobility in you, though a noble future is denied you because of the circumstances of your birth? Had you choice to decide what to be, or was that not ripped from you by your father’s whim? Were you not consigned to follow in the Prince’s path, two steps next to him and three behind, ever muzzled? Such is the life of a noble woman, signor, and a bastard. We serve and obey, because we were born “less”. You and I were caged by our relatives so that we may sing prettily for our masters.”

The lady had sounded more bitter with every word, and turned away when she was done talking. The lady sipped her drink again to calm down. In her excitement, she had run her fingers through her hair. It stood up a bit now; a fiery halo in the moonlight.

Her voice wavered. She had no artifice left, no witty remark. This was a woman on the brink of a great weeping.

“I can see a church by day light. I will grieve for Benedick, for longer than is proper. My uncle will think the only cure for such melancholy is to see me tied to some piece of valiant dust, who will refuse my father’s traditions but take my father’s property gladly. He will scorn the presence of wit in a woman; he will beat my pride out of me, probably. It is his right, as my husband. The Beatrice that Benedick knew will be smothered in the marriage bed. I will serve and obey myself to a quiet death long before my heart stops beating.”

The lady Beatrice took a deep breath and fortified herself. She looked at him then, visibly trying to change the subject. Her eyes were glistening, but she looked as fierce as any soldier. “I was born for this life – I have known it was coming all my days, yet I was foolish and hoped. Then you, my lord. The King has played a jade’s trick on you but recently. You were a bastard, but a normal one. What did you before?”

“I served my city as an administrator. I liked it well; it was a quiet life.”

“’T were not impossible to return to it. You have hope.”

To John’s amazement, the lady Beatrice revealed to him how he could distance himself from Don Pedro. She was right. John had been trapped like a wife in an arranged marriage, just so the King could reign in the Prince. But he was a man and had enough freedom still to return to his old life. He need not be some plain-dealing villain in his brother’s court just to taste control again. He could even leave alone. What use had he for Conrade and Borachio if he need be a courtier no more?

Filled with renewed hope, he thanked the lady and left to start writing letters. He was unwilling to leave immediately, though. He turned to her before he left the balcony. A tall lady she was, strong and so very lonely. She wore normal civilian clothes that spoke of revels, but she was quiet, pale and drawn. He knew she had needed him as a distraction from the grief, but he could not tarry any longer. This woman, at least, was not without true virtue. He would not risk her reputation more than he already had.

“My lady, if I may. I am not a man of many words; my brother speaks better than me. But, I am a soldier. I have seen many people losing siblings, brothers-in-arms, or lovers. I have seen some soldiers losing limbs and grieving just as well. I know not which grief is yours, but I can tell you that it demands to be felt. I can be your distraction no longer. I cannot mourn for Benedick, for I disliked him. But you loved him, in one way or another. So good a lady as you deserves not such a loss. For that, I am – sorry.”

Then, after a moment, he bowed to her - “Good night, lady.” - and walked away.

Behind him, he could hear her swear sharply. He could hear a glass breaking on a stone balcony. He could hear a long rustling of cloth; a puppet without strings slowly sinking to the ground. When he peeked over his shoulder, he saw her on the ground with her back against the railing. Her knees protected her face from view. Her hands were white in the moonlight as they curled around her head, as if shielding it from blows. She gasped and keened like a dog that was shot.

Don John left her to her grief. This pain was for one man alone to solve, and he was not here to comfort her.


	4. Chapter 4

Imogen put down the platter she had been carrying just a tad too hard. The splendid arrangement of juicy fruit, hot tarts and sticky sweets shifted about and looked slightly unkempt now. She took a deep breath, then sat herself down more gently on the couch next to her husband. It was just after lunch, and all the household was taking shelter from the hottest hours of the day in the cool lounge.

_All the household but one._

Leonato grumbled as he observed the platter on the side table: “Has she not yet broken her fast?”

It had been days since Beatrice had eaten anything richer than a light soup and butter on toast, and the periods between her taking any food at all grew longer. This had been going on for a month now. God, the lady thought, a month of grief. Most of the household was ready to move on, and yet her niece sunk deeper into the morass.

Having failed to tempt her niece to eating, Imogen shivered at how terribly downcast her niece had become. Beatrice had had wit and willpower so strong Imogen had seen herself in her, and Leonato had regarded her as a second daughter- so similar had she been to the fiery Imogen the young signor had fallen in love with back in the day. Now, though, Leonato was growing too old and traditional to allow Beatrice’s open disdain of propriety much longer, and Beatrice no longer had the strength to bounce back.

Imogen only replied: “She will not eat, nor sleep. If she goes on thus, she will kill herself in sadness.”

The lady of the house almost spilled how Beatrice was hungry only for tales of Benedick to write down in her notebooks.

_How Beatrice asks if Imogen has heard news of Benedick’s return. She asks Imogen how good a fighter he was when he was a young squire fostered at Messina. She asks how many times Benedick used to win their swimming contests. She asks if her aunt can recall witty things he said when she was not there. She asks and asks and asks whenever Imogen brings food and company, and Imogen is swiftly running out of answers._

_When Imogen cannot answer, Beatrice turns away from food and comfort alike. It is like Beatrice is shoring up pieces of Benedick while his memory is still fresh, rafts against the tide of time. It is like Beatrice is using her own beauty and well-being as blackmail to get the memories. It is like Beatrice knows that her beauty is the last advantage she has on Leonato, now that her mirth is gone. It is like Beatrice knows that, too, will not matter for long. It is like Beatrice knows what is coming. ~~~~_

Imogen almost spilled all of this, but she did not. It would only give Leonato more ammunition. Benedick’s death had set a powder keg under their household and it was only now apparent how much Beatrice’s mirth and wit had kept all their darker thoughts at bay.

_Now Beatrice is unmoored, and the family drifts with her._

Leonato peeked around the lounge for any eavesdroppers sitting too close by, then murmured in an aggravated tone: “Let her play the fool nowhere but in her own private mind! She should not act so openly. People will start talking soon. They’ll call her mad ere long, and then how will she find a husband?”

He would not say her name.

“Beatrice is only grieving, my dear.”

It is all Imogen allows herself to plead. She knows her husband will not accept how useless Beatrice’s grief makes him feel. Moreover, he will not accept how Beatrice’s grief makes him _look_. Imogen has seen now the worth of a woman’s heart in his eyes, the worth of her niece and daughter.

She could no longer entertain him and the household’s guests with her looks and wits, and so once she had isolated herself, isolated she could stay. For fear of disturbing Hero’s sleep, Beatrice had first started sleeping alone in her study during the first week after the prince came back and Benedick did not. Leonato had forbidden her from leaving the room as soon as her face became unattractively frail from famine, her wits unnervingly slow from fatigue.

He came by her only to shout at her locked door and talk to her of family pride and the duties of a lady. She was a silver bauble that had tarnished too much to show off, a song bird who had failed to sing for her supper. Leonato could not help himself in his embarrassed rage as Beatrice could not help herself in her grief.

_Leonato would strangle his own daughter if he felt his family pride was even slightly stained._

He would certainly not allow his niece to have loved a man she was not betrothed to, and to grieve him so openly – it was scandalous. Neither would he allow her to get herself to a nunnery as he’d have to hand over the control of her father’s lands, nor for her to continue in his household as she might influence Hero.

“She acts though her mind is o’er thrown, Imogen. As though the woman is mad, thus to second grief against herself.” Leonato argued quietly. “I’ll none! She merely wishes to escape marriage, and this is a ploy. If she must “go mad” from love, then I will cure her with it! Well?”

Leonato refused to see her for fear of being swayed from his stubborn, prideful anger. Imogen did see her, and she knew how pale her brow, how red her eye, how cracked her throat. How real her loss.

_Beatrice allows herself to confess dreams of independence and equal partnership into her aunt’s unmoving shoulder. Beatrice allows herself to angrily squeeze her nails into her forearms as she rages in whispers on the unfairness of a slip on a ship deck at the wrong moment. Beatrice allows herself to ugly cry in the early light of dawn and nearly ruin all her notes of Benedick._

_Beatrice looks as helpless with the fear for the future as Imogen feels. Nobody sees her anyway. No-one but Imogen, and the first wife of Messina has comforted many widows of her husband’s men, and the first wife of Messina has comforted many of her husband’s men who lost a limb._

“Well?!”

Imogen sipped some wine and discreetly bit her cheek as she looked to the young nobles gossiping in the corner. It had only been a month and already her family was falling apart. She responded not, nor did she sigh. He would not listen, anyway.

“Well.”

He took her silence as agreement, as was his wont. Her husband took a tart from the platter, sat back and munched on it angrily.


End file.
